Dr Jones and the Witch
by jamespotterthefirst
Summary: AU. Who is the stranger Lily drunkenly met at a party? And why can't she stop texting him?


"It's not like you slept together," Marlene is saying decisively as though that is all there needs to be said to make her point. She stops, the curling iron currently tangled in her hair smoking ominously. "Did you?"

"No," Lily replies at once, feeling her cheeks flush. She shifts on the bed where she sits, uneasy about her friends openly discussing her fling with a nameless stranger. "We definitely did not."

Dorcas stops midway applying the shockingly red lipstick she chose out of Marlene's makeup kit. "Wait," she chimes in, eyes meeting Lily's through the mirror. "I thought you said you couldn't remember that night?"

"I don't," she admits for what must be the hundredth time in those two weeks. "I just remember he was—"

"Insanely hot?" Marlene offers helpfully.

Lily doesn't even try to fight her on that because she is undeniably right. Her muddled memories of Fabian and Gideon's party involve loud, blaring music, a non-ending supply of alcohol, and a pair of eyes that catalyzed a warmth in her stomach that had nothing to do with the drinks. She can at least remember that much about him.

"Please don't let me get that drunk tonight," Lily begs.

Marlene raises her brows, non-committal. Before the blonde can tease her, however, Lily's phone buzzes on her lap. The eagerness with which she opens his message should be embarrassing but Lily finds she doesn't care much.

 _Unbearably handsome. You?_ , is his reply to her previous text asking him what he is going to be for Halloween.

She grins at her screen, belatedly trying to suppress it by biting her lower lip.

 _Don't know yet,_ she replies.

"Just sleep with him already," Marlene comments casually, running her fingers through her long hair.

"She will," Dorcas replies in a singsong voice before Lily can reply. "You don't save someone as ' _Shag Me_ ' in your contacts unless you fully plan on sleeping with them."

Lily glares at the pair, trying her best to look dignified. The coy smile that overpowers her, however, ruins that attempt. "I was incoherently drunk when I saved his number," she reasons. "And I didn't quite remember his name. I had to save his number some way I would remember." Her companions laugh, showing no sympathy for Lily's drunk predicament. Lily wrinkles her nose at the contact name. "Probably should've chosen something less… crude. But I can't say I can rationalize my drunk thought process." With a small shake of her head she adds, "Anyway, who says we're ever going to run into each other again?"

"You've got his number, don't you?" Marlene shoots back at once, inspecting her costume from various angles in the mirror. "He's been texting you for days now. I mean, the man is non-stop. Ask him out."

The mere thought makes her stomach plunge.

"I don't know," she admits out loud.

She doesn't think she can bear his rejection if all she is to him is a drunk girl he met at a party whom he texts out of pure boredom. Lily doesn't even have the guts to ask for his name in fear it will somehow break the illusion of the person she has dreamed up.

At her hesitation, Dorcas gives her a knowing smile. "Frank and the Prewett twins are best mates," she informs her. "Maybe Frank knows this mystery bloke too and he invited him to his party."

Despite herself, this strikes up a small beam of hope in her, even if she has no idea how she will recognize him if she runs into him again.

This small bubble of hope, however, is short lived as nine o'clock finds all three in the middle of Frank Longbottom's lavish townhouse. Lily had decided to scavenge her closet last minute for anything that could pass as a costume. In the end, she decided that a black lace boho dress she had purchased years ago along with an old costume hat Dorcas's little sister let her borrow made her a witch. Marlene had condemned her costume choice as "basic" while Dorcas, quite enviously, reassured her that she "looks unfairly good in anything, really."

By the leering looks she is getting from several of Frank's guests, Drocas's assessment carries more truth. Or perhaps Marlene's does too and the combination is what attracts the appraising looks from a group of frat boys in costumes that all somehow require them to be shirtless.

Lily is too distracted to contemplate it, her attention instead on her phone.

Nerves humming wildly, she sends him the text she had drafted ten minutes into the party, when she realized she would rather be anywhere else.

 _Do you want to meet somewhere for a drink?_

She stores her phone away, suddenly afraid of the response. "I want to leave," Lily all but shouts to Marlene over the thrumming music.

The blonde does not hear her. Her attention, instead, is on the door of the townhouse as a group of four boys make their grand entrance. The garishly handsome one with long hair dressed as a pirate cheers back, relishing in the attention their arrival causes. Somehow, he already holds a drink in his hand, despite only being at the party for ten seconds.

"Wow," Marlene comments, raising her voice slightly over the sound of the music. "There is nothing sexier than an Indiana Jones costume."

Lily follows her appreciative gaze to the grinning boy immediately behind Handsome Pirate. Her stomach clenches as she fully takes in the _sight_ James Potter is in his rather flattering brown jacket and hat. He is considerably handsome on an average day, but the Dr. Jones costume is simply—

"Damn," Marlene says, succinctly summarizing Lily's thoughts.

Marlene is still admiring his appearance, but Lily is only half listening because, at that moment, James's eyes find hers. He offers her a lopsided smile in greeting and she feels her face warm up as she smiles back.

"It's like the perfect mix of ravishing college professor and tomb raiding archaeologist, isn't it?"

Recovering, Lily laughs. "Don't let Nina hear you say that."

"She can be Indiana Jones anytime she likes," Marlene responds defensively. Her attention is then diverted to a group arriving after Potter and his friends, her eyes fixing on a tall, dark-skinned girl with glossy black hair. "Never mind," she says with a grin. "There _is_ something sexier than Dr. Jones and that's Nina in a Catwoman costume."

And with that, she disappears from Lily's side to join her girlfriend.

Not long after, her phone buzzes with his reply.

 _So you want to get me drunk to snog me again?_

Lily frowns, unable to help the slightest stab of hurt that his answer to her invitation is not a resolute yes.

 _We didn't snog,_ she replies back, in spite of herself. _Did we?_

He is taking unusually long to reply, particularly when their conversation has taken its usual flirtatious turn. Lily inhales sharply, trying her best to keep it together when her whole body is nothing but a ball of nervous energy. She even considers leaving, as was her original plan ten minutes ago, before James arrived to cheers and applause.

The memory of James and that crooked smile he gave her has her scanning the crowd for him before she is fully aware of what she is doing. It only takes her seconds and she tells herself it's because he's so bloody _tall_ and not because she had been acutely aware of his presence by the kitchen ever since he arrived.

As if on cue, his eyes meet hers and her pulse idiotically stutters. Determined to kill her, he winks at her before opening a beer bottle with his commendable bicep, a trick that is rightfully greeted with cheers and applause.

 _Nah, we didn't,_ he replies minutes later. _I'd remember that._ He follows this by what has become his signature emoji of a winking face. He sends another message, _But a bloke can dream._

She laughs quietly to herself, despite being too aware that he is still avoiding her invitation.

 _I'm in your dreams, then. You don't even remember what I look like_ , she texts back.

Again, it takes quite a while for him to reply. In the meantime, several blokes attempt to chat her up, many making feeble attempts at humor by making puns about her costume. Her laughter does not sound genuine even to her own ears, but it seems to appease them.

 _Right, well, I just remember you were quite pretty,_ his response reads.

She can feel the most idiotic grin break across her face.

Lily rereads the message repeatedly, each time feeling a thrill run through her.

As a reflex, she taps her boot impatiently against the floor, her body humming with restlessness and indecision. She could just leave Frank's party and meet him anywhere he wanted. His last reply is enough to dispel all her fears about meeting him again, all of them appearing stupid in retrospect. All she really had to do was redirect their conversation back to meeting for drinks.

 _Want to meet somewhere?_ she asks again, not caring how desperate she seems.

Unable to stand the impatience coursing through her veins like adrenaline, she moves to find Marlene or Dorcas, already thinking of an excuse to give them. She only makes it a few steps, however, because in her haste, she crashes into someone quite abruptly. Almost immediately she feels a pair of strong hands steadying her by the waist.

"Sorry," she says simultaneously with him.

When Lily looks up, she finds herself looking into the prettiest hazel eyes she has ever seen. And even though Lily sees him three times a week for their Arthurian Literature lecture, she is always struck by them. Senses finally catching up with her, she forces herself to release her iron grip on the material of his brown leather jacket. "Sorry," she murmurs again, this time making a feeble attempt to smooth over the material, even if it didn't need it.

That familiar crooked smile crosses his face.

"It was my fault," James assures her. "I was too busy looking for something to eat." He gestures at the table beside them laden with every hard liquor imaginable. "Looks like Longbottom expected everyone to get too drunk to care about food."

"There's a vegetable tray in the kitchen," she suggests helpfully.

He grimaces as if she had just suggested he ate out of the toilet. "I'd rather starve."

She laughs quite heartily at that, which elicits a wide grin from him.

"Nice costume," he comments, though, unlike the many other party-goers, his eyes do not linger on her body. On the contrary, there is an amused glint in his eyes. "A witch is very fitting for you somehow."

Lily rolls her eyes though she smiles, catching on to his usual teasing. They get along well enough, even if they only share one class together. She would even go as far as considering him a mate— a mate that spends eighty percent of the time engaged in a teasing banter with her and who often makes her stomach swoop with that slanted smirk of his.

"Because of how horrible I look at our morning lectures?" she quips. "Or because of my cackling at your awful jokes?"

He laughs. "I don't begrudge you the cackling," he says. "I'm hilarious."

Lily shakes her head. "What _is_ hilarious, Potter, is you owning a _fedora._ "

"I knew you were going to give me shit for that," he laughs. "Despite how idiotic fedoras and the prats who wear them are, it looks good, no?"

He arranges his features in an exaggerated smoldering look, very fitting to his character. The effect on his already handsome appearance is almost unbearable to look at.

She is silent for too long because he drops the facade, eyebrows beginning to mount. Clearing her throat, she quickly replies, "In this context, it does." She feels her cheeks flush. Hoping that if she keeps talking he will fail to notice, she adds, "Besides, punching Nazis more than compensates for Indy's questionable headwear."

"Ah, yes," James agrees quite seriously. "A hatred for Nazis is what Dr. Jones and I share in common. Aside from rugged good looks and always getting the girl, of course."

She laughs at that and he joins in her mirth with a grin of his own.

"Are you hungry?" he asks.

As if in response, her stomach grumbles, the sound lost to the noise of the party. "I'm starving," she replies.

"I was thinking of stepping outside to the porch to order pizza if you want to join."

She quirks an eyebrow at him.

Sensing her question before she voices it, he explains, "I'm not bringing my food into a room full of drunk uni students."

"Fair enough," she says with a laugh.

"Besides, I have to call from outside since my phone's got no service in here." He produces it out of his pocket as if to check for good merit. He reads something on the screen and frowns slightly. Quicker than anyone she's ever seen before, he types something into his phone, frown depending. "Nothing."

He shows her his screen and she can see the signal alternating between one bar and none.

"You can use mine, if you want," Lily offers, unlocking her screen and handing him the phone. "It's got full bars."

He takes it gladly, offering her a salute and a smirk that makes her stomach flutter. On their way to the door, Lily catches Marlene's eye and mutely points to James along with a signal that she would be right back. The blonde gives her a congratulatory thumbs up from where she is dancing with Nina.

Lily makes a show to roll her eyes at her friend, which is what distracts her from the quick chain of events that happens next.

She hears the buzz of a phone, then James's voice say:

"You've got a text from—"

All this is followed by a dull pain on her nose and forehead as Lily's face smacks into James's strong back. He had stopped abruptly and Lily, unaware, had walked right into him as she turned to face forward. The brim of her witch's hat hits his stiff back and flies back off her head.

"What?" she asks rubbing her nose. "What's happened? Don't tell me they're closed."

James, however, remains quite still, saying nothing for a long time. Lily can practically feel the tension in his muscles and she becomes increasingly concerned.

Then—

"Shag me?"

She is almost certain she mishears him.

"Pardon?"

Slowly, he turns to face her, his face completely expressionless. He raises his hand for her to see where he is still holding her phone.

"Your contact," he says slowly, not for her benefit but for his own, it appears.

The blood drains from her body with a horrible drop of her heart. Face flaring with heat, she opens her mouth like a gaping fish out of water, words failing her. How could she even _begin_ to explain what a ridiculous, lustful drunk girl she is?

He waits, expression as impassive as ever.

"You went through my messages?" is what she manages to indignantly huff out instead.

"It just came in," he explains. "I was about to dial the pizza place when it popped up."

As if to prove his point, her traitorous phone, still in his hand, lights up with another incoming text. The sender's name is bold and shockingly contrasting against the white screen.

 _ **Shag me.**_

They both stare at it for a long time.

"Signal's probably back," he mutters at last.

Lily hardly hears, however, too preoccupied with mortification so acute, she is certain dying on the spot would be preferable. When she looks up at him, he is doing a poor job of fighting back a grin.

"It's this bloke," she blurts out, unsure why she feels the need to explain. Perhaps her desperation stems from her wish to appear somewhat _sane_ in front of the handsome, smirking boy before her. "I've been texting him for a while now—"

"Evans," he interjects, voice steady.

"Except, when I met him I was drunk and I couldn't remember his name and—"

"Evans."

"And now, I'm certain he thinks I'm _desperate—"_

"He doesn't—"

"—when he is obviously not interested—"

"He is—"

Distantly, she becomes aware that he is saying words, but she is too focused on her own rant to decode them. Her brain stutters to a halt as she realizes she's telling the story all wrong.

"I met him at—"

Her phone made it back to her hand at some point because it vibrates with yet another message from him. She glances down at the message, short enough to fit in the preview notification in its entirety.

 _Look up._

Confused, she does.

James is smiling fondly at her, his face far more handsome than ever before.

"—Fabian and Gideon's party, yeah," he finishes quietly.

Lily looks into his eyes, looking particularly alight behind his spectacles. She is unsure if it's the golden light of Frank's porch lamp or something else, but they appear more alluring than ever. A wave of warmth unfurls within her despite the brisk October chill. Bright rays of realization begin to dawn in her mind as it all begins to make sense.

James seems to read the comprehension in her features because his grin widens.

Before Lily can say anything, he fills the distance between them and captures her lips in his. The second his lips move tantalizingly against hers is the moment she _knows_ with unwavering certainty that she had wanted nothing more but to kiss him. Not the mystery guy who made her smile every night with his messages but _James_ , the very real boy who playfully teased her and made her laugh out loud in class.

James's hand travels up her side, finally resting at her jaw, his thumb trailing soft lines against her skin as he deepens the kiss. Lily shivers, the feeling of his caress, mixed in with the intoxicating warmth of his body are maddening. When he pulls away slightly, she is left with the erratic desire to pull him even closer, even though their bodies are already flush against each other.

"It's you," she murmurs against his lips.

"Yeah," he says with a small chuckle.

Lily opens her eyes, pulling her head back slightly to look at him. "Did you know all along?"

"I should have," he says, amused. "But no. I saw the message I sent my mystery girl in your phone just now—"

Lily blinks. "What message?"

For the first time in that whole mess, James looks slightly uncomfortable. "I, er..." he trails off before trying again, "I sent it in there," he nods towards the townhouse emitting the muffled sounds of the party. "But I had no signal, remember? I reckon my phone finally got some reception when we came out here because all my messages came through at once."

"What did the messages say?"

"I was telling her that I couldn't meet her anywhere."

Lily stares, eyebrows raised.

"You were going to reject me, then?"

The tinge of color on his cheeks is so endearing that she has to bite back a smile. "Only because I wanted to spend time with someone else," he explains. "You," he adds when she begins to feign offense. "Except you were you and—"

The sheer absurdity of everything hits both of them like a punch and they begin to laugh uncontrollably. They stay like that for a moment, laughing at their own stupidity until James sobers slightly, his amused grin turning wicked.

"So," he begins casually, "my contact name."

Lily blushes despite being pressed against him, his hands all but burning through the lace of her dress. "It's what I thought of you when drunk," she explains quite seriously. "I guess that means you'll have to convince me of the same now that I'm sober."

He is already moving to kiss her jaw and Lily can feel his smile against her neck when he says, "My pleasure."


End file.
